Different Evolutionary Hypotheses

Rather than attempt to list even the main range of alternatives
that have been developed throughout the ages, I will limit myself
here to nine possibilities, each of greater or lesser plausibility.
So we have here a number of fundamental interpretations to the history
of the Earth, life, and man.

The scientific (or Darwinian) explanation

The scientific (or darwinian) explanation is based on the extraordinary amount of data collected by the sciences,
which is tied together by a number of hypotheses: the Earth and life
develop through various physical, chemical, and biological processes,
over billions of years. Man evolved from the apes by the purely physical process of "natural selection"; the same process through
which all life evolved.

The Scientific cosmology is thus one of continual development and progress through tremendously long periods of time (see Geological
Timescale page). Note though that, because there is no spiritual
reality in materialistic science, this development is not in any way an "upward" path from lesser to greater; it is simply a neutral fact. However, there have been many who have merged the scientific and the spiritual
understandings, and thus see evolution as a valid upward progression
towards greater and greater Spirit.

The "Creationist" Religious explanation

The "Creationist" (or Fundamentalist) Religious explanation draws from a literal reading of the
Biblical book of Genesis, which was originally an old Hebraic creation
myth, interpreted through the theology of the later (from about several
centuries c.e.) Christian Church. The timescale is claustrophobically short: Creation came about through the activity of a single supernatural
entity, "God",
who created the universe and all life in six 24 hour days about 6000 or
10,000 years ago. Man did not descend from the apes, but was created
personally by God, and thus the only creature to have a soul.
There is no evolution or transformation; the whole cosmos is static.

The "Liberal" Religious Explanation

The "Liberal" Religious Explanation is similiar to the above, but sees Genesis as symbolic rather than literal. Evolution
(Science) is the means
by which God (Religion)
acts behind the scenes to bring about the creation of life.
Science and religion are complementary. Man evolved from the apes,
but his/her soul comes from God.
Religious references refer to symbolic rather than literal facts - e.g.
liberal Christians and Jews say the six days are really six "ages" of indeterminate
length.

The Goethian position

"The work of the Swiss biologist and anthropologist Adolf Portmann
(1897-1982) both directly refers to Goethe's research and uses the same
methods. Thus Portmann brings Goethe's science of nature into a modern
context .... Goethe's science is essentially qualitative and teleological
in the Aristotelian sense in which processes are understood as a manifestation
of "form," which is not to be explained only in causal terms. By emphasizing
organic qualities as irreducible to mechanistic and molecular ("reductive")
explanation, and by using a teleology
of the type employed in explaining the ontogenesis of the human being,
Portmann's biology and anthropology are based on principles and methods
of Goethe's science...

Goethe's basic view that all species have common origins agrees with
Darwinism thus far. But, for Goethe, this origin cannot be one special
organic form (e.g., no particular animal form among vertebrates) because
"no single one can give the pattern of the whole." The single variants
of form can then only be understood "from the general idea of type," which
is just such a unitary whole, not at all a material quantity, but an idea.

For Goethe, this "type" or ideal "primal organism" is, in Darwinian
terms, the "form of common descent" of organic development. "The form of
common descent or whatever one calls it is for him [Goethe] always the
type itself, as [a sensory-spiritual] idea and it already pertains prior
to any definite family of species, which it conditions," asserts Herman
Siebeck. The "type" is "a purely apperceptive, typical form manifesting
itself in sensory space in a graded sequence...of qualitatively different
species" until it reaches its most complete manifestation--in Goethe's
words its "highest form of organization"--in the human organism. "The type
comes forth more clearly at the higher than the lower level". "

The Teilhardian position:

According to the teachings of the Jesuit Paleontologist Pierre
Teilhard de Chardin, Consciousness and Matter are aspects of the same
reality. Evolution proceeds through successive stages
of increasing consciousness and complexity: (a) the layers of the Earth
such as geosphere, lithosophere, atmosphere etc (i.e. development of inanimate
matter), (b) the Biosphere (life); (c) the Noosphere (self-conscious thought,
or mind; i.e. mankind); and (e) the Omega Point (all humans are united
in a single Divine Christ-consciousness). Little is said concerning
such "supernatural" matters as the Soul
and the after-life, or even God
as a transcendent being; humanity is distinguished from the rest
of creation not by a "soul" (the conventional Christian position)
but by a mind (the "Noosphere"). Teilhard is an extremely influential
thinker, and his ideas are very appealing to those who find the purely
materialistic understanding of the universe inadequate, but are unable
to accept the fairy tales of the biblically literalist Creationist Christians.

The Taoist position.
The science and cosmology
of ancient China is very like the Western scientific position, in that
it denies the existence of a "Creator", or of any kind of evolutionary
"ascent" or direction in nature. The cosmos is seen as the
interaction between the two fundamental polarities of Yin
and Yang, and all creatures in it from the constant interchange of
the "five states of change"
(usually misinterpreted as five "elements") that arise from Yin and Yang.

The Hindu-Buddhist position.
The cosmos is understood as an endless succession of cycles, and cycles
within cycles. There is no evolution as such, only the ceaseless
wheel of rebirth (transmigration). The only way out is the attainment
of Enlightenment or Liberation (nirvana, moksha)

The Theosophical and Anthroposophical
position: The central cosmological teaching of Blavatsky
and Steiner and
their respective followers is perhaps closer to Christianity
than it is to Darwinism. Like Christianity it sees Science as only
partially applicable, in that although Science may be useful it is
also frequently in error. Instead, knowledge is derived from
Clairvoyance, the "ancient wisdom", and the "akashic record" (a sort
of "cosmic memory"). These reveal the existence of a number
of previous cycles of human evolution, and even greater cycles of
cosmic evolution. These cycles include "lost continents", such
as Lemuria and Atlantis, which the earlier races of humans inhabited.
It is also emphatically stated that man did not descend from the apes,
but "congealed" from a more subtle, "etheric"
state of being. The Earth similarily only fully solidified very recently
(perhaps only several thousands or millions of years ago). So although
other living organisms probably evolved in the way Darwinism
describes, man represents a "special" Creation that is not part of the
physical process of nature. Here we see a concession to the Judeo-Christian
religious sentiment, which demands that man be seen as apart from and superior
to the rest of nature.

Anthroposophy in fact combines the Theosophical occult with the Goethian
intuitive approach to produce a cosmology and philosophy - and a philosophy
of evolution - that is quite facscinating, albeit not without many shortcomings,
especially when interpreted in literal material terms.

One could add a further alternative, the
Scientific-Esoteric synthesis: As I understand it, the facts
given out by science concerning the origin of the Earth and the evolution
of life, including man, are all true and correct. But they
only pertain to physical reality. Intimately associated with this
physical reality are other levels of consciousness and existence,
and it is these that serve as the "blueprint" of the evolving physical
form. In addition, the cosmologies of the Theosophists,
Anthroposophists,
and other esotericists
can be taken as true intuitions of events on these nonphysical planes. Distortion arises however in translating these understandings into a physical cosmology. Thus, science and esotericism can be seen as partial viewpoints, each pertaining to a different level of being.